Thinking about it, what is the stupidest fictional thing ever?

[bartholen_v1legacy]

When a ghost civilization has grown tired of existing only as a memory they bring a sports celebrity alive from themselves to kill the planet-terrorizing ancient monster that's serving as their life support.

For a moment there i wanted to ask "Where is that from that sounds cool!"
Then i realized you were talking about FFX and now i think you are an inhuman monster hiding in the hollow shell of a human like thing, sitting in the head or torso and controling the body with way to few controls for the task. . .

Damn-it. The hu-maan has gifure us out. Abort plaaans to tak over E-art-H.

Seriously speaking, I never could understand why the Fayth had to create someone like Tidus. Even if he wasn't a sports celebrity with no prior combat experience to speak of, his personality would still be as appealing as feeding your private parts to a wood chipper.

And remember, the part I mentioned isn't even the focus of the story. It comes into play during like the last 6 hours of the game out of the 45 it took me to complete the thing. Now that I think about it, if it was the central focus, maybe FFX's story would have been a lot more interesting.

 

[Drakmorg]

A race of ancient, space-faring machines make a habit of letting organic life grow and evolve for 50 millennium, then show up and meticulously wipe all of it from the face of existence. But not before they pick one particular life-form out from a hat and build a giant robot by grinding up as much of that life-form as they can find and jamming the paste between metal plating.
Also apparently all intelligent life prior to 50 millennium ago consisted entirely of intelligent cuttlefish.

 

[Mister K]

You know what? I like giant robots. No, that came out wrong. I freakin LOVE giant robots. But the whole concept is ridiculous.

Still:

WHO! DIGS! GI-ANT RO-BOTS?!
I! DIG! GI-ANT RO-BOTS!
WE! DIG! GI-ANT RO-BOTS!
CHICKS! DIG! GI-ANT RO-BOTS!

Spoiler

Nice.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

The way time travel works in the Back to the Future films, despite being probably the best time travel films ever (IMO).

In Dragon Ball Z, Freeza detonating the planet?s core meaning that the planet eventually explodes in five minutes (give or take).

The Book of Eli. Full fucking stop.

A man who's had his heart removed has to constantly electrocute himself to stay alive.

You're talking about Crank 2, right? God, that was abysmal. Crank was crazy, but it knew where to stop and remained entertainingly ridiculous. Crank 2 just went off the deep end.

 

[Groxnax]

Talking animals.
Vampires that sparkle.
Teens that pilot giant mechs.
And small everyday items that can either save or end all life or save the planet.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

An alien parasite that develops to the size of one's forearm while occupying exclusively the chest cavity. After being planted there via esophagus. That is able to keep them alive in an atmosphere completely uninhabitable to humans.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

Sending Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to drill a massive hole and plant a nuclear bomb inside a FUCKING ASTEROID

 

[Exterminas]

Pointless romance side-plots.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Bullets that send people flying when the recoil of the gun doesn't do the same thing to the shooter.

Excepting if the shooter is a giant, or the "bullet" accelerates after leaving the barrel, I guess.

 

[Terminate421]

You know what? I like giant robots. No, that came out wrong. I freakin LOVE giant robots. But the whole concept is ridiculous.

Still:

WHO! DIGS! GI-ANT RO-BOTS?!
I! DIG! GI-ANT RO-BOTS!
WE! DIG! GI-ANT RO-BOTS!
CHICKS! DIG! GI-ANT RO-BOTS!

Spoiler

Nice.

Thats not stupid, thats awesome.

Dumbest thing...a boy conjures up weird shit because of his dreams including a very scary looking george lopez, Jacob from Twilight, and horrid CGI. (Sharkboy and Lava Girl)

 

[Alhazred]

Gunblades, i.e. weapons that combine a melee weapon and a firearm within the same object, are of 'sounds mathematically good on paper, turns out to be completely retarded' area of stupidity.

As far as I know, part of the reason why guns are designed the way they are is to deal with the recoil of essentially setting off a small explosion in your hand. So what happens when you put this in something not equipped to deal with the recoil? A load of broken hand bones, that's what. And this is without even considering the weight issues, or accidentally shooting yourself.

These weapons are all over the place in Roosterteeth's very stupid anime-inspired series RWBY, where just about everyone seems to have one of the fucking things. The dumbest of the lot belongs to the main character, combining a scythe (already a decidedly impractical weapon) with some sort of high-powered rifle. And is wielded by a girl about half its size. And to top it all off, she says she made it herself! Did she download the plans off the internet or something?

 

[Someone Depressing]

That wearing no armour, and thus exposing the "undergarments" that are commonly used in MMOs to prevent nudity, actually covers you up more than if you were wearing the armour.

*gets stabbed in the neck by TERA Online*

Or the very concept of the Illuminati.

 

[balladbird]

the premise of "Parasite eve" definitely springs to mind. not "stupid" in a bad way, but still a very silly things to play as perfectly straight as they did. XD

The mitochondria proletariat, tired of slaving under the opulent oppression of the nucleus, evolve into action in the form of an opera singer and rebel against their human overlords... by setting them on FIRE! ..and melting them into puddles of goo ...and mutating animals in improbable ways to attack them.

...because Mitochondria are more than the glorified energy creation engines of the cellular bourgeoisie!

viva la organelles!

 

[Torkuda]

Pretty much any movie that bring up aliens for the express purpose of the "aliens are gods" trope. Yes, they traveled light years to get here, it's still stupid to assume that means they can blow up buildings with their minds and completely dominate us. Yes, we HAVE seen advanced cultures fight un-advanced cultures and ya know what, the gods (the advanced culture) 100% of the time, bleed. Advanced cultures generally win, but they still bleed. If they didn't, explain the wars of the natives and settlers, or the Americans with Iraq, or the Romans and... well a good number of their enemies. It's rare that victory, in a war, means no one on the winning side died.

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

 

[Mid Boss]

Pretty much any movie that bring up aliens for the express purpose of the "aliens are gods" trope. Yes, they traveled light years to get here, it's still stupid to assume that means they can blow up buildings with their minds and completely dominate us. Yes, we HAVE seen advanced cultures fight un-advanced cultures and ya know what, the gods (the advanced culture) 100% of the time, bleed. Advanced cultures generally win, but they still bleed. If they didn't, explain the wars of the natives and settlers, or the Americans with Iraq, or the Romans and... well a good number of their enemies. It's rare that victory, in a war, means no one on the winning side died.

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

If an alien race wanted to wipe us out the LAST thing they'd do is send in war ships and troops. If they have the technology to traverse the universe then bombing us from some insane distance away or engineering a virus to wipe us out would be simplicity. It would also be far faster, easier, and more cost efficient. There's only one movie I've seen that came close to this and that's Maximum Overdrive. Yeah, the Steven King movie where machines become sentient and start killing all the humans. They were made sentient by an alien ship in orbit around the earth that everyone thought was a comet. No one on earth EVER knows they are being invaded.

That's all assuming they'd be interested in us at all or if the technology to traverse the universe is even possible. One scientist, I don't recall whom, once said "If they're out there... Where are they?" As old as the universe is, dozens of intelligent races would have risen up billions of years before us and, even with our current level of technology, could have used conventional rockets to form an intergalactic empire spanning the galaxy by now. Which leads one to believe there is three possibilities. We're protected, like some sort of animal preserve. Interplanetary travel is just too expensive of an undertaking. Races invariably destroy themselves. Or that they're all melded with some super computer living out eternity as Neo and don't give a damn about the real world.

 

[Thaluikhain]

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

The US could destroy Rome with nuclear weapons quite easily, however that doesn't happen in the real world for various reasons.

Now, sure, aliens could have reasons for not doing so, but they generally aren't mentioned.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

A race of aliens hell bent on conquering the Earth are essentially thwarted by the common Cold (War of the Words).

EDIT: I'm surprised nobody has mentioned killer trees yet.

 

[Torkuda]

Pretty much any movie that bring up aliens for the express purpose of the "aliens are gods" trope. Yes, they traveled light years to get here, it's still stupid to assume that means they can blow up buildings with their minds and completely dominate us. Yes, we HAVE seen advanced cultures fight un-advanced cultures and ya know what, the gods (the advanced culture) 100% of the time, bleed. Advanced cultures generally win, but they still bleed. If they didn't, explain the wars of the natives and settlers, or the Americans with Iraq, or the Romans and... well a good number of their enemies. It's rare that victory, in a war, means no one on the winning side died.

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

If an alien race wanted to wipe us out the LAST thing they'd do is send in war ships and troops. If they have the technology to traverse the universe then bombing us from some insane distance away engineering a virus to wipe us out would be simplicity. It would also be far faster, easier, and more cost efficient. There's only one movie I've seen that came close to this and that's Maximum Overdrive. Yeah, the Steven King movie where machines become sentient and start killing all the humans. They were made sentient by an alien ship in orbit around the earth that everyone thought was a comet. The vast majority of the human race was wiped out without anyone even knowing they were being invaded by aliens.

I hate to say it, but even that doesn't really work. We have how many weapons that can achieve obit these days? Half of them nuclear and all of them super sonic (physics dictates they have to be super sonic, escape velocity is pretty high after all). Seriously, I've never seen an alien race in fiction that I was convince would be able to beat us like that, unless they used "aliens = gods". Sit just on top of our atmosphere where we already have hundreds of satellites? We would just shoot them down. "But they would shoot your missiles down about a hundred feet before hitting the target!" Yea, that MIGHT work with normal missiles, but do you know what 100 feet away from hitting a target is to a nuke? IDEAL detonation distance. Nuclear weapons don't work like bullets, close really does count. If someone is honestly trying to wipe us out, I think Obama could get clearance to fire something nasty at them, in space.
Even with a virus, there's no assurance that plan would actually work. Sure, firing back would be a challenge if they just deposited something and left, but even if we didn't figure out how to cure a bug, we already have quarantine protocols, in fact most societies have that. Biological war has existed for a lot longer than we've had a specific name for it. It's effective, but only to a degree. It especially doesn't work if you don't stick around. Say you poison the water supply and leave... and then folks just get water from another source. That won't even be marginally effective. I know "what if they poisoned ALL the water!" And that's just giving them god like powers again. Seriously how would something like that even work?

 

[Torkuda]

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

The US could destroy Rome with nuclear weapons quite easily, however that doesn't happen in the real world for various reasons.

Now, sure, aliens could have reasons for not doing so, but they generally aren't mentioned.

Well one would assume that blasting the sh** out of us with an alien version of nukes would actually be incredibly stupid if they wanted our land. Unless they live in radiation, and even then the results of their attack would probably be pretty unpredictable even for them. War is almost never that straight forward.

And sure, the US could nuke Rome, and either A, have all our allies start shooting at us, or foregoing that, the land would be irradiated, so just like the aliens, if we expected to get anything out of that, we were just being idiots.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Sit just on top of our atmosphere where we already have hundreds of satellites? We would just shoot them down. "But they would shoot your missiles down about a hundred feet before hitting the target!" Yea, that MIGHT work with normal missiles, but do you know what 100 feet away from hitting a target is to a nuke? IDEAL detonation distance. Nuclear weapons don't work like bullets, close really does count.

In atmosphere, yes, in vacuum, not so much. I'm led to believe that we don't have missiles designed to reach orbital targets that are designed to carry nuclear warheads, as there is currently no use for them, but possibly some could be modified for that role.

On the other hand, though orbit capable weapons aren't that common, they can be launched from surface vessels, submarines, planes or large trucks more or less anywhere on the planet. The target is sitting there in orbit with nothing to hide behind.

On the other other hand, the technology to travel interstellar distances, they might be able to intercept and destroy missiles at extreme distances, and definitely won't need to be in orbit to attack.

Well one would assume that blasting the sh** out of us with an alien version of nukes would actually be incredibly stupid if they wanted our land. Unless they live in radiation, and even then the results of their attack would probably be pretty unpredictable even for them. War is almost never that straight forward.

Kinetic bombardment doesn't have that issue.

Now, certainly, there may well be issues that prevent that, which a writer could use, but it's very annoying when they don't bother.